Comrade Lenin received the ambassador in his working office with the words: "I am very glad to see in the red capital of the workers' and peasants' government a representative of the Afghan people, who are friendly to us and who suffer and struggle against the imperialist yoke." To this the ambassador replied: "I extend to you a friendly hand and hope that you will help the entire East liberate itself from the oppression of European imperialism." During the conversation that then ensued, Comrade Lenin spoke to the effect that Soviet power, the power of the toiling and oppressed, strives precisely toward that which the Afghan extraordinary ambassador had spoken of, but that it is necessary for the Muslim East to understand this and to aid Soviet Russia in the great war of liberation. The ambassador replied to this by saying that he could assert that the Muslim East has understood this and that the hour is near when the entire world will see that there is no place for European imperialism in the East.

Then the ambassador rose and, with the words: "I have the honor to present to the head of the free Russian proletarian government a letter from my sovereign and hope that what the Afghan government speaks of will attract the attention of Soviet power," — handed Comrade Lenin the letter of the emir. Comrade Lenin replied that he receives this letter with the greatest pleasure and promises in the near future to give a reply to all questions of interest to Afghanistan{91}.

*Pravda* No. 232 and *Izvestiya VTsIK* No. 232, October 17, 1919

Printed according to the text of the newspaper *Pravda*